For Immediate Release: Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Contact: Steve Hopcraft 916/457-5546 steve@hopcraft.com; Twitter: @shopcraft;
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla barbara@restorethedelta.org; 209/479-2053; Twitter: @RestoretheDelta
Sacramento, CA – Consumer and environmental advocates today succeeded in winning Assembly Water, Parks & Wildlife Comm. approval for an independent cost-benefit analysis before committing the public to pay tens of billions of dollars to build a Peripheral Canal or Tunnel to take Delta water. The committee voted 10 to 2 to pass out AB 2421 (Berryhill). “Urban water users would pay billions of dollars for a massive Peripheral Canal or Tunnel. Those who’ll pay deserve to know how much they’d pay and how much benefit would go to those ratepayers,” Conner Everts, Executive Director of Southern California Watershed Alliance, told the committee. “There are numerous references to studies, but not one would require a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis.” Restore the Delta, Sierra Club California, the Planning & Conservation League, Clean Water Action, the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, the Delta Coalition and Ducks Unlimited joined in the call for an independent cost-benefit analysis.
Kristin Lynch, Pacific Region Director of Food & Water Watch, told the committee, “It’s essential to have an independent analysis of who pays and who benefits before embarking on the largest public works project in the history of California. The BDCP could create a large potential financial exposure for the people of California. The people deserve to know the true cost they are taking on.”